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Continuing our Dillinger series in honor of Johnny Depp coming to Chicago to start as Dillinger in “Public Enemies,” here a bit on our very favorite piece of Dillinger lore.

In the last post, I noted that to break out of prison with an obviously-fake gun, Dillinger must have had balls the size of church bells. Well, that’s actually not far off from the legend. Rumors have gone around for years that Dillinger had a 23″ member that is now on display at the Smithsonian. Here’s the picture of his corpse that started the legend:

Rigor mortis had set in, causing his arm to be bent at the elbow, creating this tent-like protrusion above his crotch. See how the onlookers (except for that one woman) look awfully impressed? It does indeed LOOK like he’s awfully happy to be on the slab.

Once again, if the cast of “Public Enemies” wants to take the best tour in town, we’ll be happy to oblige!

In honor of Johnny Depp coming to town to film a Dillinger movie, Public Enemies, here’s a post about John Dillinger’s great escape. In 1934, Dillinger, America’s favorite bank robber, was imprisoned in Indiana, awaiting trial and a sure death sentence. But he carved a fake gun out of wood and used it to break out of prison, leading to a five month man-hunt ending in the infamous Chicago “shoot out” – which was actually probably either an assassination or a hoax, depending on who you believe – outside of the Biograph Theatre, which still stands on Lincoln Avenue.

Here’s a picture of the phony gun:

Dillinger must have had balls the size of church bells to pull a scheme like this – that gun wouldn’t fool anyone who looked at it for even a second. I’m no gun nut, but I don’t think the words “colt 38” are normally actually written on the side like that. According to most versions of the story, no one really SAW it – Dillinger stuck it in a guard’s back, said “stick em up!” and soon had acquired several REAL pistols from the guards.

The alley where Dillinger was shot is now between two Mexican restaurants and features of a mural of a guy playing a guitar. Until its recent touch-up job, the painting always made me want to say “hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Here it is, pre-touch-up:

Incidentally, if the cast of “Public Enemies” would like a tour, we’d be happy to oblige 🙂

Kim Hartley has sent in a few possible ghost pictures from the Friday night tour that are cool enough to warrant a post here. Here is our standard ghost picture disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: Chicago Unbelievable never claims any ghost picture to be “authentic.” There are always other explanations for weird photos, ranging from weird camera issues to simple optical illusions. There is no such things as GOOD ghost evidence, only COOL ghost evidence – we post these as examples of the latter.

Anyway, with that in mind, here’s a shot from the basement of the former funeral parlor where some see a vague, humanesque form at the right. I can see what they’re looking at, but, as sometimes happens, it looked more distinct on the LCD screen. I’ve messed with the brightness and contrast a bit in attempt to make it more distinct:

And two from inside the windows at Hull House that appear to show faces behind the curtains. There are MANY ways to get a “ghost picture” that’s really just an optical illusion at this place, but, on the other hand, I’ve had more kids than I can count say that they’ve seen a woman in these two windows, and the curtains were moving around a lot on this particular night – more than they normally do from the air vents. No adjustments have been made to these ones. What do you think? See anything?

Had a tour with a couple of especially spooky stops last night; we swung by Hull House and found that, possibly due to some renovations, it was seeming more actively creepy than it has been in months (although, I’ll repeat: there was never any devil baby! See earlier post!) Even better, we got a possible apparition photo in the basement of an old funeral parlor – I hope that we can post that picture here soon!

In the mean time, though, here are some photos from our first Zombie Pub Crawl on New Year’s Eve:

That’s Ken in the front seat.I was the Zombie Ned Flanders myself:

It wasn’t really a pub crawl, in that we didn’t need to hit that many pubs. Rather, we spent our time:

– Getting out of the bus at crowded spots (Michigan Avenue, theaters that were just letting out, etc) and roaming around shouting “BRAAAAAINS!”

– Going “zombie caroling” (which is like regular caroling, only the word “brains” is thrown into the song at every possible opportunity) before crashing a party at DJ CarrieMonster’s house.

– Doing the Thriller dance at the metro

– having a BIG snowball fight on Lake Shore Drive. Traffic was at a total standstill when it got close to time for the fireworks at navy pier, so we all got off the bus and had a fine snowball war with the other people who were stuck in traffic and with the people stuck on the street down below (we had the high ground, giving us a distinct advantage).

Lately, every bit of research I do leads me to some candy store or another. Here are some spooky candy shops (mostly long gone, of course) of Chicago:

1. Frank Wilde’s Fruit and Candy Store – Milwaukee Ave. Though different addresses were given for this place, I’m reasonably confident I’ve figured out where it was – it was certainly on Milwaukee, between Ashland and Damen. In the 1890s, a teenaged girl named Emily Van Tassel worked here. Exactly who Franke Wilde was is not known for sure, but it’s believed that he did not exist, as such, and was just an alias for the true owner of the store: the murderous H.H. Holmes. She is listed as one of Holmes’ victims, and was thought to be buried in the basement of the store. I’m pretty confident that the building no longer stands.

2. Sorenson’s Candy Store – Elizabeth and Grand. Only a handful of blocks from Frank Wilde’s, this is the candy store we’ve mentioned many times lately that was owned – and burned for insurance money – by Belle Sorenson, wife of the owner, Max Sorenson. Under the name Belle Gunness, Gunness became one of the most prolific murderers in history. The exact name of the candy and stationery store has not been determined.

3. Terry’s Toffee – 1117 W. Grand. This current AWESOME shop happens to be in the site once occupied by Rose’s Sandwich Shop, where Richard Cain, an FBI/mafia double agent who is sometimes said to have been involved in the Kennedy assassination, was murdered in one of the mob’s most public hits in 1973. Joey “The Clown” Lombardo is thought to have been behind the hit. Right down the road from the Sorenson’s site – be careful buying candy in River West!

4. 63rd and Wallace – In the days when H.H. Holmes ran his “murder castle” in Englewood, one of the other businesses in the building was a candy store. The other day I saw an article that named the owner, but now I can’t find it again! I want to say the name was something like Mrs. Gloomis. I’ll post an update if I can find it. EDITED TO ADD: Found it! It was buried in the midst of our hundreds of files on holmes. The candy store owner was named Mrs. Barton.

5. 321 E. 43rd – here stood a candy store run by Nathan Higgins, who was accused of murder in 1965.

You might reasonably ask: who are these people, and why are they standing around a giant raisin?

Actually, it’s the Foolkiller 3. Not to be confused with the Foolkiller Submarine – that’s a topic for another day!

Peder Nissen, hero.

Peter Nissen of Francisco Street was an accountant by day, but, like many accountants (I assume), he dreamed of a more exciting life. He built a miniature steam boat known as the Foolkiller in which he shot the Niagara rapids. The boat actually featured an open design so that he could wave to the crowds – if he hadn’t thought to install shoulder straps at the last second, he surely would have died.

In 1904, after shooting the rapids in The Foolkiller and its successor, The Foolkiller 2 , Nissen decided that he just hadn’t cheated death enough and decided to invent a new ship, The Foolkiller 3 (pictured above), in which he would discover the North Pole. The craft was really little more than a big canvass balloon – the main inner workings were simply a hammock-type seat hung from the axel; Nissen would steer by moving the basket back and forth across the axel. The idea was that the thing would roll over both land and sea.

After testing it on land and running into a pole, people started to think Nissen was a little bit nuts. One cold winter night, he shocked the city by setting out in the strange vessel to cross Lake Michigan to Michigan City, Indiana. A tug boat followed, begging him to turn back, but Nissen carried on, undaunted.

Exactly what happened to poor Peter Nissen is a bit of a question mark – there are conflicting reports. All we know for sure is that the wrecked Foolkiller 3 was found on the shore, not far from Nissen’s body. He didn’t survive the trip, but he DID make it across. And we here at Mysterious Chicago admire his spirit!

Many people come to this site (or, even worse, go to Hull House) looking for photographs of the “Devil Baby.” There aren’t any. If you see any on other sites, they’re fake. The Devil Baby story was just a rumor that went around in 1913 (after having gone around in other cities many times before). Though Jane Addams saw a lot of value in the story (and in folklore in general), and even speculated that perhaps a deformed baby had been born somewhere on the West side, no such baby was ever brought to Hull House.

The story goes as follows:

In the early 20th century, rumors went around that the devil had been born (in baby form) somewhere around the Levy district and dropped off at Hull House, the settlement house on South Halsted. Exactly how this came to happen varied (largely depending on the ethnicity of who was telling the story), but most variations stated that the baby had red skin, horns, and spoke English, Latin and Italian fluently. Hundreds of people came to Hull House demanding to see it. When I tell the story on tours, people tend to snicker.

But in those days, people really believed…..oh, who am I kidding? Some people STILL believe that the story was true. They give me dirty looks for saying that it wasn’t, and for saying that the devil baby’s ghost doesn’t haunt Hull House to this day. Some of them even go to Hull House and bug the staff about it, just the way people did back in the old days. It’s in the realm of possibility that some poor, deformed baby was brought there (it’s a safe bet that fetal alcohol syndrome was rampant in the neighborhood, and pre-natal care barely existed), and someone saw it and let their imagination get carried away with them, but Jane Addams denied that the story had even that much truth to it, and I’m willing to take her word.

So I’ll just say this once: there was never a devil baby, and there’s no devil baby ghost, at Hull House. There may be some ghosts in there (I had enough weird nights on tours I brought there in 2006 to at LEAST give it a “maybe”), but the devil baby isn’t one of them. Some legends that aren’t true are harmless, or even beneficial to a city and its view of itself. Some of the rumors about Hull House, though, aren’t harmless. There are enough TRUE stories about the place that the legends and rumors should be presented as legends, and nothing more. However, a couple of tours, in particular, have been spreading some real crap about the place. It’s irresponsible on their part, since there are plenty of TRUE stories about the place that they usually ignore (if they know them at all). Devil Baby stories (a common urban legend at the time) could get ugly – in one town, a family had a mob at the door wanting to sacrifice their (perfectly normal) infant.

Most of the more famous stories about Hull House – and most of the pictures – are bogus. Smudges and glare on the window leads to a lot of ‘ghost on the stairs’ shots, and every “monk ghost” picture I’ve seen has turned out to be (I swear I’m not making this up) the reflection of someone’s ear. There is no headless ghost that will follow you home if you don’t cross yourself before entering the garden. The garden is not a burial ground. I’m not out to spoil anyone’s fun here, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile to waste time hunting for ghosts that I know aren’t real.

In 2006, during renovations to the building, I did run a lot of tours in which weird stuff happened there. We heard babies crying from inside the garden one night (there’s no graveyard in there and no portal to the netherworld; but when Jane Addams first moved into the house, that spot was occupied by either a brothel or an undertaking parlor). For a couple of weeks the shutters were opening and closing, apparently of their own accord. And we did get a few pictures that I’ve yet to explain and don’t really expect to.

While doing research today, I came upon a BIG article Jane Addams, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Hull house herself, wrote about the Devil Baby for Atlantic Monthly in 1916. You can read it yourself here, and I highly recommend that you do. It’s a fascinating read – does anyone know which ballad she’s referring to when she talks about a ballad in which a mistress demands that her lover bring her his mother’s heart on a plate? I pride myself on knowing my gory folk ballads, but this one has me stumped.

Anyway, while it may be haunted, DON’T believe everything you hear, and, for goodness sake, don’t go bugging the people who work in the building about ghosts, and certainly don’t show up with equipment expecting to be allowed to run some hunt for the ghost of the devil baby.

DEVIL BABIES

Devil baby stories have been told for years—stories of infants born with horns, hooves, and claws . . . and a habit of using profane language with ministers. Join paranormal authority Adam Selzer as he investigates the legendary Devil Baby of Chicago’s Hull House, the famous Jersey Devil, and the satanic baby reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1888. You’ll never look at babies the same way again!

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Adam Selzer is a tour guide and Atlas Obscura field agent with 10+ years experience in Chicago and New York. The author of more than 20 books, he is frequently seen on The History Channel, The Travel Channel, and more. Check out the new Cemetery Mixtape podcast! Email